Tadpoles - what do they eat?

[HazellB]

I have a series of old Belfast sinks placed here and there in my horse grazing for frogs and other wildlife. The dogs like to cool their toes in them sometimes, but otherwise they never get so much as a glance if I'm honest.

Today, though, my partner and I took a walk round to make sure the bits of wood propped in the sinks were still there (to let animals out who may drown). We were surprised to see one sink was really heavy with tadpoles. We know there's frogs all over the land, but we've never seen tadpoles funnily enough.

When I went back this evening, the same sink was almost black with them. It's as if all the frogs chose the same place to mate. You can't see anything in there but tadpoles!

I don't want to move any as there could be a reason they've not chosen other sinks. But what can I throw in as food? They'll never manage without help, the numbers are too high.

Pond pellets? Boiled egg yolk bits?
Please help, our froggy friends need you!

[kitla]

We used to hatch tadpoles when the boys were younger, we fed them dried goldfish
food, lightly boiled lettuce & local pond water full of water fleas.
For the first few days they live on the jelly they hatched in, if there's that many
there they will probably start eating eachother!

[Gwenoakes]

Have had a google and come up with this:- allaboutfrogs.org

If the link doesnt work goodle Frogland and it will bring you to the same site......I think. It looks a bit complicated with grass to stop tadpoles drowning when they turn into frogs etc. Good luck.

[HedgeHugger]

My taddies seem to have disappeared this year. Had spawn, it hatched, taddies are a no show. Guessing it's the fishes fault

In past years, when feeding the fish, the taddies would demolish a few pellets.

[HazellB]

Cheers folks

Put in a very few wheatgerm pond pellets (as I read tadpoles are veggie to start with) and will progress to pond pellets later. Had to move a few over to another sink in the end and as they're fine we may move more when space gets tight.

Must be going soft - getting all maternal over frogs

[chookmike]

I'm a bit late here but put some minced meat in there - beef, pork lamb, whatever you have. Just a teaspoon full and replace when gone.

We had tons of spawn this year but no tadpoles visible and only a few tiddler fish in there.

Strange

[fabindia]

Hi Hazel

I kept tadpoles for years as a kid and was pretty successful at raising dozens of small frogs.

You're probably right about all the frogs in the neighbourhood laying in your old sink. They seem to like too congregate together to lay, often on the same day. I once saw hundreds of them spawning at a local pond one morning. Tadpoles are pretty omnivorous, to begin with they just polish of the jelly that they hatched from. Then they seem to sort of rasp on vegetation, hence the advice to feed them on lettuce.then they'll start eating bits of anything meat like, bits of flies that have fallen into the water, dead worms, etc. By all means feed them bit off meat but be careful the water doesn't turn rancid by giving them to much.in a very confined space if you don't feed them anything and they run out of food, then they'll turn carnivorous and eat the weak ones as they die. Survival of the fittest I am afraid.

[HazellB]

Ta for the advice.
I fed, and am still feeding, pond pellets with a high fish content once the tadpoles were growing well. In the end we had to move thousands to spread them over 14 very large Belfast sinks round the fields and yard. Only one place has failed a bit, with the other 13 doing very well indeed. The failure even has half it's original contents, so it's no real disaster.

I bet we have 5% with front legs now, over 60% with back legs and the rest later hatches. There's been no eating of younger ones yet so far as I've seen (and I'm wasting hours watching them each day!) so I think the food to space ratio is about right. We guess there's about 10,000 tadpoles, give or take a dozen

The small dog's ticked off as his water bowl has been taken over by frogs who have left the sinks for peace and quiet in calm, tadpole-free water. He's also lost his paw cooling sinks of course. The big dog hasn't even noticed the new babies, but I bet he'll be frog and toad hunting all winter now as he's a Saluki and they love to dig up hibernating things.

[jannie]

Hi Hazel .. Tadpoles are herbivorous and feed on the algae and plantlife in pond water, their digestive tracts change during the metamorphosis and they become carnivorous feeding on slugs and insects. They'll need to be able to get to dry land from the sinks and water bowls...as the metamorphosis into frogs happens the gills stop working and the lungs take over ..if they can't get out of the water they will drown ..a few branches and stones will help them on their way to find feeding grounds and some nice ponds for a dip.

A couple of nights a year I volunteer to help the millions of tiny frogs that migrate across a road near me .. some years we scoop them up with snow shovels, last year there were very few of them, it was so sad .. hopefully this year we will have to use snow shovels again.

[fabindia]

millions of tiny frogs that migrate across a road near me

Wow that must be interesting to see. One of the things about insects, amphibians, fish, etc is the way they survive is to play a numbers game. They lay hundreds if not thousands of eggs most of which will be eaten or die one way or another. It does help us though when we need to step on and help them. If we can raise the young in a fairly protected environment then we can release thousands of them back into the wild.

[HazellB]

Well, the vast majority of ours have now got either front legs about to pop out, semi-functioning front legs or are froglets who can walk about fine. I'm pretty proud of the little critters (though it's not like I'll be naming them or anything!).

Don't worry, we have ladders out of all the sinks already jannie, as I said in my first post. They have easy exits and entrances aplenty.

Of course now I'll be cleaning squished froglet from under the horse's hooves for a few weeks ..... but that's life

[Mo]

My daughter was somewhere (NT or summat) last Sat and there was a notice up warning not to tread on the froglets, there were loads.